After the election boycotts and intermittent violence surrounding the uncontested reelection of Pres. Pierre Nkurunziza in 2010, Burundi struggled to secure its fragile stability and peace during 2011. Concerns over security were heightened amid ongoing grenade attacks as well as threats from the al-Qaeda-linked Somalian militant group al-Shabaab, owing to Burundi’s deployment of thousands of troops as part of the African Union’s peacekeeping force in Mogadishu, Som. Sporadic grenade attacks that had started after the 2010 elections continued into 2011 with a New Year’s Day assault in the capital, Bujumbura, that left three dead. As the year progressed, a spate of grenade and gun attacks perpetrated by men in police uniforms flared up throughout Burundi. International concern was raised in June over the alleged extrajudicial killings and cases of torture carried out against opposition parties by the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy–Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD). Agathon Rwasa, the self-exiled leader of the opposition National Liberation Forces (FNL), maintained in September that since January 169 members of the FNL had gone missing, 20 of whom were arrested and later found dead.

In February Burundi signed the River Nile Cooperative Framework Agreement, a multilateral initiative involving the securing of water resources by countries in the Nile basin to enable hydropower projects and the construction of dams and to safeguard agriculture in the region. More than 90% of Burundians depended on agricultural food production for their livelihoods.

Aid workers raised concerns over the alarming rise in hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity in several provinces. Outbreaks of cholera, which infected more than 400 and killed 4 in Bujumbura and several surrounding provinces, compounded worries over a growing crisis. Nearly 60% of Burundians continued to face food insecurity due to drought, high food prices, land scarcity, and weather phenomena, such as La Niña.

The British government announced that by 2016 it would cut all development aid to Burundi, which was ranked by the World Bank as the world’s second poorest country. Since the genocide in the 1990s and the ensuing 13-year civil war, Burundi had been struggling to rebuild and develop its society and infrastructure.

city, western Burundi. Bujumbura is the nation’s capital and largest urban centre. The city’s industry specializes in textiles, leather, paper, chemicals, and agricultural products. Bujumbura also serves as the country’s main port on Lake Tanganyika; most of Burundi’s...

cyclic counterpart to El Niño, consisting of a cooling of surface waters of the Pacific Ocean along the western coast of South America. While its local effects on weather and climate are generally the opposite of those associated with El Niño, its global effects can be more complex....